Guest Post: Laurie Boyle Crompton and a "Comic Book Cool" Character

Monday, February 4, 2013

Dear friends,
As part of the Blaze blog tour, we have author Laurie Boyle Crompton. Her debut novel is called Blaze (or Love in the Time of Supervillains) and she's going to tell us why Blaze is a "comic book cool" character.

Blaze’s character showed up in my mind like Blam! Pow! “Tell my story!” She’s really into comics and is sort of stuck in her life as an outsider, but she isn't ashamed of being a geek. She displays her superhero buttons proudly and is constantly drawing and reading comics. I couldn't wait to write about her. Of course, working on a project where studying comic books counted as research was a bonus!

My step-father has this Ah-mazing! collection much like the one Blaze’s dad has in the book and I remember staying up late at night reading through stacks of them as a kid. I would try to tell my friends about these awesome characters like the Silver Surfer and Iron Man, and I’d even try to imitate Thor’s Norse God way of speaking. This was before the movies made these guys more mainstream and I was definitely on the fringe with my obsession, but when I’d find another comic book nerd we had an instant bond.

As I was writing, Blaze surprised me when she fought back against Mark the way she did and I knew at that point I could just allow her character to take over. Of course things don’t go as she plans, but no matter what tight spots she finds herself in, she uses comic books to guide and empower her. Readers who aren't into comic books will definitely still enjoy Blaze, but my hope is that she will inspire them to check out comics for themselves, too!

About Blaze the novel:

Blaze is tired of spending her life on the sidelines.
Blaze has always wanted her to life to be a little more X-Men/Jean Grey-cool rather than the reality: nerdy chick that drives a mild-mannered brown minivan (aka the Subatomic Superturd of Steel) for her brother and his friends, the Soccer Cretins, and spends all her time drawing comics. Then, super-hot soccer god Mark takes her on a couple of dates, and Blaze is certain her life is finally beginning. But when he uses her and dumps her, Blaze creates a comic book starring Mark the Shark that has everyone talking.

Mark retaliates online, and suddenly Blaze is gigabytes deep in an epic online battle to the (social) death. Mark may have humiliated Blaze supervillain-style, but he quickly learns geek girls always get revenge.

It was a great read! I will be posting my review of Blaze later today--please check out my full review.